Experience shows that benchmarking's potential to drive dramatic improvement lies squarely in making out-of-the-box comparisons and searching for insights not typically found within intra-industry paradigms. To enable this beneficial benchmarking, the APQC Process Classification Framework(SM) (PCF) serves as a high-level, industry-neutral enterprise model that allows organizations to see their activities from a cross-industry process viewpoint.

Originally created in 1992 by APQC and a group of its members, the framework has experienced more than a decade of creative use by hundreds of organizations worldwide. The PCF is supported by the Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative(SM) (OSBC) database and the collaborative's advisory council of global industry leaders. The PCF will continuously be enhanced as the OSBC database further develops definitions, processes, and measures related to process improvement.

The Process Classification Framework was originally envisioned as a taxonomy of business processes. Since its inception, the PCF has been updated a number of times to reflect changes in the way companies do business. Each of these changes updated or changed existing elements of the taxonomy, without adding additional information about the taxonomy elements. Feedback from users of the PCF indicated that there was a strong desire to have more definitions attached to the framework.

Therefore, In July 2007, APQC engaged a working group of practitioners, consultants, and academics to address this need and collaboratively develop definitions based upon real-world experience with each of these processes. The result of that collaborative effort is the Supply Chain Definitions and Key Measures  document: a listing of each of the supply chain processes with definitions and the selected key performance indicators. The definitions contained in this document are to be considered in conjunction with the PCF. The content in this document will be updated in conjunction with the updates to the PCF and the research performed at APQC.

APQC's Supply Chain Definitions and Key Measures document provides additional depth and key performance indicators for PCF Category 4.0 "Deliver Products and Services." This category includes:

4.1 Plan for and acquire necessary resources (Supply Chain Planning)
4.2 Procure materials and services
4.3 Produce/Manufacture/Deliver product
4.4 Deliver service to customer
4.5 Manage transportation (logistics) and warehousing 

APQC's Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative sponsored the development of these definitions and key performance indicators. To read the full set of definitions and key measures, please click here.

The PCF and the Supply Chain Definitions enable organizations to understand their inner workings from a horizontal process viewpoint, rather than a vertical functional viewpoint. The PCF does not list all processes within a specific organization, and every process listed in the framework is not present in every organization. For more information about the PCF, visit www.apqc.org/pcf. If your organization is interested in learning more about the Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative (OSBC), including how your organization compares to others in terms of the KPIs defined in this document, visit www.apqc.org/sc.